Diaries to Come on Sunday or Monday

Hello!  The good news is I have wifi! The bad news is it won't work on my NetBook! So I just wanted to let you know I unfortunately won't be able to upload my conference diaries until Sunday or Monday. I hope everyone is having a great week.

TERMIS Diary - Day 1

As I write I'm sitting in a station waiting for my train to take me on the first leg of my journey to a tissue engineering conference in Italy. It's the first conference I'll have done a spoken presentation at, my first international conference and the biggest conference I've been to. To say I'm feeling nervous is a bit of an understatement! But I'm going to do everything I can to get my nerves under control and get the most I can out of the  experience.  As it's quite a big week, I've decided that I will keep a diary  of what I get up to while I'm away and try to put up a new mini blog up everyday (free wifi permitting), to give you an idea of what conferences are like.

So far today I've packed and repacked twice more my suitcase, checked my tickets, passport and wallet more times I can count, synced up my iPod. It's a bit of a relief to sit down and relax to be honest. The rest of my day is promised to be filled with a tube journey, another train and an early dinner before bed.

I'm now in my guest-house room, a few miles from Stansted. I'll tell you one thing, the smaller London stations aren't that fun! I've now got the lovely thing to do of wait for the morning and skedaddling to the station, with a bit of presentation prep in the middle. Fingers crossed I'll make it to the airport with no problems!

Weekly Round-up 2nd June 2014

Its time for a weekly round-up!So, here's what's caught my eye on the internet over the past few week.

1. MIT's "A Slower Speed of Light"
   
   Researchers at MIT have developed a game to help show what movement at approaching the speed of light might feel like to a human observer. The general idea is that 'seeing' what happens will help people to understand the theory of special relativity, which I think it does, but it is a bit trippy and not suitable for the photosensitive!
2. The New Scientist Discusses Why the EU is Good for British Science
   
   It's a bit too late to change the result of last week's elections (unfortunately my council seat went to UKIP), but for future reference here's another reason why being anit-EU might not be such a good thing for UK science and therefore, UK PLC.
3. The Longitude Prize 2014
   The Longitude Prize has been relaunched for 2014, with £10 million up for grabs for a team or individual who solve a 'global challenge', but what will be the chosen challenge? A public vote is currently running to decide. So is this prize actually going to do something useful or will it just be Britain's Got Science? I'm not sure myself, personally I don't see why there shouldn't be some funding for research in all 6 categories. It's definitely a nice idea, but whether it's the best thing to do or not is another question. I also wonder, what will happen to the money if a research council funded project wins the prize.
4. Glamorous Scientist's Aren't the Answer
   
   George Osbourne is trying to encourage young girls into science through the use of 'glamorous' role models. But, as the 'Science, its a Girl Thing' debacle along with actual research shows, this probably isn't going to work and it may well be a waste of time and money. As the above article suggests the real thing we need to do is refresh public perception of STEM so the general view is that anyone can do science and engineering, not just the cleverest few.

And finally I leave you with the first ever thing I've seen on The Big Bang Theory that we actually do in lab... Enjoy!

The Not So Calm Before the Storm

It's Bank Holiday Monday and thanks to the quirks of universities I get Bank Holiday Tuesday off tomorrow! So it's time for a breather and to take stock before work creeps in once more. However, I must say I will be using my day off extra time to practice, practice and practice some more my first conference presentation (which I find really hard to do in work) and my lines a fast approaching performance of the Accrington Pals. Overall, it's a bit of a weird time for me at the moment as it feels like I'm waiting for all sorts of things to happen. I'll be leaving for a conference in 2 weeks time, then in the coming months I've got a 2 week industrial placement to organise, end of year paper work to do, another conference to attend and, on a more fun note, a play to get ready for. However, beyond all that there's something else on the horizon, my Final Year. 

It's strange, you'd think that this far in to a PhD Final Year wouldn't seem like such a big deal and to be honest I would rather like to leave and get a real job in a year and a bit's time. But that's precisely the difficultly! I quite like it being a year and a bit away! It's quite scary that very soon I won't have the cosy 'year and a...' in front of the measurement of the time I have left. In Final Year I'll need to write a thesis, finish up with all my experiments (which will involve starting some new ones) and apply for jobs; so it feels like the time I'm in now is the calm, or rather not so calm before the storm. A time to present my work, write and re-work a paper or two and have everything ready to help me gather momentum to burst into the Final Year with a great start.

Don’t get me wrong there are some awesome things to look forward in Final Year. Firstly, being able to have a beautifully bound thesis with my name on it (I’m so going hardback), although I have to write what goes inside it first. Also, I’ll be less than a year from hopefully having a job with employment rights and a pension (whooooo!), but on the down side I have to actually get offered a job in the first place. And that’s when I get stuck, I’m very much looking forward to the after the PhD, but the journey to get there could be very.... interesting.

What I need are goals, little things I can give myself a gold star for completing. That way I should hopefully properly manage my time, keep an eye on what I need to do and be able to focus on what I have accomplished rather than what is left to do. So my plan is to have set up lots and lots to-do lists in Excel. In the past I could never really get on with to-do lists reaching beyond what I wanted to do each day, but now that I have more to think about than experiments I need to have a clear handle on what I need to be doing and when it needs to be done by so it seems like to-do lists are the way to go. The good news is that I've found that, for some reason, using colour coded deadlines in an Excel spreadsheet helps me cut through the clutter and clearly see what I need to be doing and when I need to be doing it by (and setting them up is the perfect form of procrastination).

So as time ticks on, hopefully I'll be able to stay focused by being a to-do list queen. But, if you have any good organisational techniques and useful programs you use please share them in the comments! I'm sure that I and everyone else reading would find it very helpful (and a good excuse to procrastinate some more). 

Weekly Round-up 19th May 2014

It's been a busy few weeks in science with Royal Society appointments, paper retractions and merger deals. Here's a few of the links, stories and posts from around the internet that have caught my eye.

1. Statin Safety
   
   It seems like there are a lot of studies being refuted and withdrawn at the moment. This week, portions of a paper claiming that statins maybe a high risk treatment have been withdrawn from the British Medical Journal. But is it too little too late? The paper questioning the safety of the drugs has caused confusion and worry for many patients. In many ways this situation highlights the importance of transparent research practices, rigorous review and the way the media represents research to the public. 
2. The Royal Society and Women in Science
   There has been a lot of talk over the recent wave of new appointments to the Royal Society and how the number of female members of the UK's most prestigious scientific society trails the equivalent society in the US. Prof. Athene Donald tackles the difficult subject of how we might be able to increase female membership, without resorting to tokenism. 
3. ITER Begins to Take Shape
   The question of how we're going to power our world in the future is still hanging over us and a project to help us solve that problem is finally beginning to take shape. The ITER project is aiming to meet our energy needs through nuclear fusion, the process which happens in the sun where energy is released by sticking atoms together,  which produces helium (a useful resource) and other common atoms in the process. Now, after a rather long and drawn out start up phase, some of the more complex and important parts of ITER are beginning to take shape. Although there are still substantial delays going forward, fingers crossed this international project will get a handle on how we can harness fusion power on Earth. 
4. Pfizer + AstraZeneca = ??
   After a few weeks of uncertainty it seems like the saga of whether Pfizer will take over UK based AstraZeneca and how this will effect UK science, is finally reaching a conclusion. Pfizer have faced large opposition, as there is a significant fear that Pfizer might simply take Astra's drugs portfolio and scale down drug research in the UK. However, after Pfizer's final bid for Astra was rejected this morning it looks like UK jobs and science will be protected for the foreseeable future.

And finally here's Smeagol Sings 'Empire State of Mind' for your viewing pleasure.

What is open access and why are people talking about it?

There's an ongoing debate in the scientific community about how scientific research should be disseminated to other scientists and the general public at large. At first glance, I can imagine that this sounds very much like an internal issue, but is that really the case? So much of the work universities do is funded by research councils, who award government funds to projects deemed to be worth investing in. Therefore, the general public as tax payers have a stake in the research performed under such grants. So don't we have a right to have access to the research performed with our money? The answer to that question is a resounding yes.

In many ways traditional publishing is still king in science. Scientists submit work to a journal, it is peer reviewed (a process with certain level of controversy in itself), it is published as an article of some form on paper or on line and a payment is made by or on behalf of an individual to access the work. However, change is coming in the form of Green and Gold Open Access. UK Research councils now have a policy that states that work done using grants from them must be published via either the Green or Gold Open Access pathways. But what does that mean?

A research article that has Gold Open Access is simply a peer-reviewed journal article which is free to view by anyone on the day of release. Therefore, anyone anywhere in the world can read it without having to pay. But how can journals make money from this? The answer is the levying article processing charges from authors, typically of the order of thousands of pounds to publish the article. In the UK these charges are often paid from a central university pot provided by the government. The alternative to this is known as Green Open Access. Under Green Open Access an article is initially published behind a pay wall, but it is it is made freely available after a period of 6-12 months (depending on field and research council). Therefore, under this form of open access only subscribers or those able to pay will have access to the most up to date research. The positive is a university doesn't have to pay article processing charges to go down this route so arguably its a cheaper alternative in the short term. 

Which model is best for the future is debatable; part of the problem is we live in an insincerely large global community with scientists collaborating from all over the world, and not everyone is going open access. So while the UK's universities are starting to pay to publish, they are also still paying to read articles from the rest of the world (and research funded by non governmental organisations) often helping to produce huge profits for giants like Elsevier (see last week's roundup). Is that fair? Its hard to say. Someone has to foot the bill for peer review and editorial costs. But is it worth paying for open access in a journal where vast amounts of content is sealed behind a pay wall by default? This is the very essence of the debate, and its hard to see which is the right way to turn. The Times Higher Education Supplement published an article in 2012 detailing the arguments between Green and Gold, which is well worth a read. 

The other part of the open access landscape is the arXiv (pronounced archive) or pre-print servers. These open pages are where scientists upload their work primarily for comment and discussion with other members of the scientific community in the same field before going for publication. However, this isn't without its own problems. Certain journals won't publish material that's been uploaded to the arXiv and papers submitted are not peer reviewed so they don't have a true 'stamp of approval' against them.

What is the publishing community doing in response to the open access movement? Some publishers are creating new fully open access journals, where all content is free from day one. Some like the new journals from Nature Publishing Group have flat publishing fees, but some publishers are doing something a bit more interesting. The Public Library of Sciences (PLoS) is a not for profit publisher that has a range of journals with a tiered payment system, with one price for first world countries, along with reduced fees and free publishing for those from less well off countries. This is an interesting effort as it's trying to encourage open access to become normal and accessible on a global scale, not just on a country wide scale. 

In time I think open access will become a global standard, as well as a national one, but first the question of who pays and how needs to be fully ironed out into a single policy.

Link Roundup 5th May 2014

Happy May Day bank holiday! I hope everyone is enjoying a well earned break from work today. While you relax, here's my selection of interesting links from around the internet for your viewing pleasure.

1. Cambridge's Vice Chancellor Talks Scientific Publishing and Open Access 
   The VC at Cambridge has been talking about scientific publishing and how he's not very happy with the amount the university are spending with scientific publishing giant Elsevier. In addition he's also been talking about how easy it would be to go open access, in view of the large number of journals which charge for publishing and whether pushing to publish in free open access journals would hurt a researcher's career prospects. I think this is a really interesting debate as a lot of the research with the most impact is either published behind a pay wall, or open access at a rather large expense to the university. Going forward there is no doubt that the free open access vs. paid open access vs. subscription debate is going to be rattling on for a long time.
2. 5 Things Successful PhD Students Don't Do
   I came across this interesting article via Athene Donald's twitter feed and it's definitely an interesting read for any aspiring/current PhD students. There's definitely a few things in there that I for one really need to remember! 
3. Flipping the Women in Science Debate
   As well as talking about the lack of women in science, shouldn't we also be talking about the lack of men in nursing, teaching and other caring professions? I would definitely say yes! Equality is a two way street; men need to feel welcome and be encouraged into the more 'care focussed' professions just as much as women should be encouraged and accepted into 'technical' careers. This interesting article provides a spot light onto the disparities in the number of men and women in different profession and wonders if we need a pipeline into the caring professions for men, just like the one being put into place to help women into science and technology. Thank you to the Women In Science, Engineering and Technology Group at the University of Leeds for dropping this into my inbox this week.
4. From Adult to Embryonic Through Cloning
   After recent controversies in stem cell research, I came across some good news for the field this week! A team of researchers have cloned skin cells into a donated egg to create insulin producing cells as a possible future cure for diabetes. This form of creating stem cells, while being bundled up in ethical issues, allows for the production of stem cells without genetic reprogramming, which will hopefully avoid the produced cells  being a cancer risk. Fingers crossed this could be a step in the right direction for research into stem cell production.

And finally here's former Doctor Who companion Arthur Darvill singing his own special version of 'Let It Go' from Frozen.